On top of a declining audience and debt, the orchestra had to weather a huge loss of endowment value during the Great Recession, a very bitter 2010-11 strike, and the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy. Now the DSO is expecting its seventh consecutive balanced budget, lower ticket prices and concerts in Detroit neighborhoods have led to a spurt of audience growth that includes students, and the orchestra made its first overseas tour in 16 years, wowing audiences in China and Japan. And much of the credit for all this good news goes to CEO Anne Parsons. – The Detroit News
Category: music
The Throat-Singing Mongolian Rock Band That Has Taken Worldwide Music Charts By Storm
Their first two videos, for Wolf Totem, and Yuve Yuve Yu (or How Strange, How Strange) have amassed more than 45m views on YouTube over the last year, while their debut album, The Gereg, opened at No 1 on Billboard’s Top New Artist chart and No 2 on the magazine’s Indie Label chart. – The Guardian
Managers Of Paris’s New Concert Hall Try To Fine Its Architect €170 Million, And Architect Counter-Sues
In 2006, when plans for the Philharmonie de Paris were announced, the venue, with a flashy, futuristic design by starchitect Jean Nouvel, was supposed to open in 2013 at a cost of €173 million. By the time it actually opened in 2015, the building’s cost was €386 million. So authorities sent the architect a bill for €170 million in penalties for late delivery and overruns. Now Ateliers Jean Nouvel has gone to court, arguing that the bill is “totally disproportionate, not only in the absolute, but also relative to the sums that were actually received.” – Yahoo! (AFP)
While Many Arts Institutions Are Giving Up Oil Money, This Major Music Festival Is Raking It In
At this past summer’s Salzburg Festival, director Peter Sellars turned Mozart’s opera Idomeneo into a warning about climate change. Not even three months later, the Festival announced a big sponsorship deal with Russian fossil fuel colossus Gazprom and Austrian oil firm OMV. – The New York Times
Humans Say: Music is Not An Algorithm
“The current streaming culture we find ourselves in marks music and wide open spaces of exploration into nothing more than a commodity, and because of this, we’re increasingly driven away from music’s way of connecting us all, that deep resonating force that helps us experience and process the weird wonder that is life.” I Care If You Listen
Reversal: WNYC Decides Not To Cancel “New Sounds”
“It has become clear to me that John and Caryn Havlik’s work is distinct, inimitable, and intrinsically New York—and that this beloved team must stay with us. A show like New Sounds can only be produced by public radio, and specifically at NYPR,” station CEO Goli Sheikholeslami wrote in her email. – Gothamist
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Needs More Than A Plan To Stay Afloat
A consultant tells the BSO that it needs a “vision” in order to deal with the debt and the uncertain future. The consultant said that “the BSO should be building a blueprint for the next seven to 10 years. In Detroit, where the orchestra had ‘zero liquidity’ and went through a months-long strike nearly a decade ago, articulating a long-term plan encouraged donors to commit new funds, he said.” – Baltimore Business Journal
Russell Thomas is much more than a black tenor. Now, he’s tackling ‘Otello’ and the field’s stereotypes.
“‘I am not an Otello,’ Thomas says … [Yet] suddenly, it seems that Otello is all anybody wants to hear from him. … The problem [is] that there are very few tenors, white or black, who are able to sing the role. Thomas, now, is one of them, and the opera world is eager to seize on him, not only as an Otello but also as a representative of the diversity that the field claims to be desperately seeking.” – The Washington Post
Fans Protest WNYC Cancellation Of “New Sounds”
For music fans, the news last Thursday that WNYC will end New Sounds, a show hosted by John Schaefer since its debut in 1982, has provoked a deep sense of mourning and nostalgia for both the show and the city’s eroding arts and culture scene. Over four decades, the eclectic music program had come to be seen as a proud local institution that reflected New York City’s sophistication and idiosyncratic personality. – Gothamist
The Radical Personal Life Of Johann Sebastian Bach
“I’ve talked to people who feel they know Bach very well, but they aren’t aware of the time he was imprisoned for a month. They never learned about Bach pulling a knife on a fellow musician during a street fight. They never heard about his drinking exploits—on one two-week trip he billed the church eighteen gorchsen for beer, enough to purchase eight gallons of it at retail prices—or that his contract with the Duke of Saxony included a provision for tax-free beer from the castle brewery; or that he was accused of consorting with an unknown, unmarried woman in the organ loft; or had a reputation for ignoring assigned duties without explanation or apology.” – Lapham’s Quarterly